Oprah's Book Club

We think that because we dwell inside our bodies
that we are separate from other people who dwell
inside theirs. Because our consciousness
is tied to the physical manifestation of reality, we are tied
to the belief in separation. The transformation
from body identification to spirit identification is the
purpose of our lives. When we
begin to see each other through what the metaphysician calls the
third eye, we begin to know each other on a level
that is beyond what our physical eyes can see. A
mother can unite so wonderfully with her child and
the level that separates them is as nothing. The
same can be true of course for lovers and friends.
All we are talking about here is getting to the
point where everyone has that experience of oneness
with everyone all the time. It is not easy, but
one day it will be.
-Marianne
Williamson

New Age Spirituality is a big business these days and no one is bigger
within that milieu than Marianne Williamson. Not only has she received
the Oprah imprimatur (for her book, A Return to Love: Reflections on
the Principles in A Course in Miracles), she was also one of the self-help
gurus summoned to the White House to counsel the Clintons.

Her beliefs, such as they are, derive from A Course in Miracles,
the three volume work which Jesus Christ dictated to psychologist Helen
Schucman between 1965 and 1972. The Lord purportedly informed Schucman
that we had all seriously misunderstood what he was trying to say and that
there was no such thing as original sin, rather we are all innocent, having
been created in God's pure love. Thus, the following prayer from
Williamson's book :

Dear God,
When they accuse me falsely,
help them see the innocence in me.
And when I judge, Lord,
help me see the innocence in the.
AMEN

And not only are we inherently innocent, the Course teaches that since
we were created by God in this perfect state of innocence, evil is necessarily
an illusion.

Innocence is wisdom because it is unaware of evil,
and evil does not exist.

And, of course, since there is no such thing as evil in the world, there's
no such thing as sin. These things that we perceive as being wrong
with the world are really just a function of our separation from God.
Once we reunite with God, return to this recognition of His love, evil
and sin and all the rest will just disappear.

This is what Christ himself did. He obviously did not die for
our sins; how could he have if they don't exist ? Instead, he became
one with God, getting past all those illusions which separate the rest
of us from sharing in this oneness. Further Christ was not unique,
nor the son of God; this path is open to us all. Thus, this prayer
;

Dear God,
May the walls
which keep me separate--
from my brothers,
my sisters,
my self,
and You--
now melt.

May the thoughts
and feelings
which keep me in hell,
be dissolved
forever.
AMEN

Bang ! Zoom ! Easy as that. All we have to do is get rid of the
bad thoughts and everything will be hunky dory.

No wonder this stuff is so popular. It's really just the inevitable
extension of radical egalitarianism into the spiritual sphere. Since
at least the time of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the Left has been convinced
that we are all essentially equal in talent, intelligence, etc. and that
any differences that we perceive must be the product of artificial social
barriers which grant certain people advantages, while holding back certain
others. The idea that there could be genuine and discernible differences
between different people is anathema to this ideology, which has brought
us such unfortunate remedies as socialism, communism, affirmative action,
the graduated income tax, public schools, special education, the Americans
with Disabilities Act, and so forth. All of them intended to use
the power of the state to try and impose equality of results where equality
of opportunity has not produced the dreamt of egalitarian society.

The Course in Miracles and Marianne Williamson take on the final
battle; they seek to convince us that we are all morally equal. For
if evil is an illusion, if none of our actions are important, if all that
matters is the search for oneness, then man is no longer a moral being.
Forget all those Biblical admonissions--the Ten Commandments, the Golden
Rule, the various covenants with God--Man is not actually required to bring
his actions into conformity with God's will, he just has to stop thinking
bad thoughts and he will be one with God.

This is so much more reassuring than the Judeo-Christian tradition,
which teaches us that we must overcome sin before we can approach Godhood.
In one fell swoop they've disposed of all those annoying little rules that
have bound our behavior all these thousands of years. Best of all,
since those rules are notoriously difficult to abide by, we don't have
to hold ourselves responsible for violating them, since the evil they are
intended to suppress is imaginary anyway. No wonder the Clintons
were so anxious to hear about this "religion"--it basically pardons all
of your misbehavior.

And that is who this belief system is obviously intended for, folks
who don't care to accept responsibility for their actions, who don't feel
capable of leading moral lives and withstanding God's judgment. The
problem, of course, is that this moral egalitarianism is likely to be as
counterproductive as has been the prior political and economic variety.
Treating the unsuccessful in society as if their failures were the fault
of others, and then either transferring the wealth of others to them or
creating a system of preferences to give them special advantage, has not
served to lessen inequalities of wealth. If anything it actually
retarded the progress of the underclass, which understandably became dependent
on government and lost any sense of personal initiative. The quest
for economic equality ended up leading to greater inequality.

Similarly, if you teach people that evil does not exist, that their
actions don't matter, and that all God really requires of them is that
they recognize their own innocence and worthiness, you can predict the
effects. In fact, we see every day the effect of this denial of the
reality of evil and de-emphasis on morality : this is hardly a society
in which we are moving towards a greater oneness, towards some kind of
mutual love. Instead it is an increasing amoral and atomized society,
one in which people refuse to accept that actions should have consequences
and one in which people are reluctant to judge the behavior of others and
refuse to have their own actions judged.

This is all extraordinarily dangerous. Responsible people, regardless
of their own religious faith, must resist this kind of expedient twaddle.
Evil exists. Judeo-Christian morality is the basis of Western society.
The confluence of evil acts and standards by which to judge them imposes
an obligation on all of us. In the first instance we must each try
to meet these exacting standards, but when we fail to do so we must be
prepared to accept the judgment of our peers. In turn, we must be
prepared to judge others when they sin. A world in which evil does
not exist is certainly a desirable goal, but we won't get there by pretending
it does not exist, nor by ignoring or excusing it when it occurs.